


Target Practice

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tamingthemuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 07:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/636388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm sure as hell gettin' tired of ringin' the dinner bell for these sons of bitches."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Target Practice

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season Two. Written for LJ's tamingthemuse community, for the prompt 'double down', which my dictionary defines as "increase one's efforts or focus"
> 
> * * *

"I can't do it."

"You can," Lori said patiently.

Carol huffed out an exasperated breath, let the rifle dangle while she wiped a sweaty palm on her trousers. Squared her shoulders before lifting the rifle back into position. Her arms ached; she was hot and tired and frustrated as all hell. But she tried to clear her mind, focus only on the bottles lining the fence. She narrowed her eyes and peered down the sight, held her breath and fired. 

She missed.

Carol hung her head. "I'm just wasting ammunition that we can't afford to waste!"

"You're not," Hershel said. He moved to her side and adjusted her stance. "First time I went out hunting with my brother, I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. You're already doing better than I did, that summer. Now just relax," he advised, "and breathe."

* * *

"How's she comin'?"

Rick, leaning against the car, squinted up at Daryl before glancing back to the shooters lined up in the field. As he watched, Carol sighted down the barrel and made another attempt at the old glass jars and dented tin cans. When her shot went at least five feet wide of the target, her shoulders slumped. 

He turned back to Daryl and raised an eyebrow. "'Bout as well as could be expected."

"That bad, huh?" 

"Sure you won't reconsider givin' her some lessons?"

"Ain't no good at teachin'," Daryl said. "Ain't got the patience. Lori, though," Daryl jutted his chin toward the field, "seems to be doin' just fine."

Rick didn't follow his gaze. Lori was starting to show now, and every time he looked at her he felt his jaw tighten and his shoulders tense. All it took was one glance into her eyes and he was mentally transplanted back to Hershel's meadow, every single time – to Shane holding that gun on him and telling him he was a better father, a better husband than Rick himself; or worse, cradling Shane in his arms and feeling the knife plunge into his chest, so easy, the copper stench of the blood and the slick slide of it on his hands and Shane, Shane…

"Rick, you hear a word I said?"

Rick blinked. "Sorry," he said, shaking his head. "Woolgathering."

"Well, you best get your mind on the game, 'cause them shots are drawin' walkers, and fast."

Rick pushed himself up from the car, slid his knife from its sheath and looked down the dirt and pebble-strewn path. Six walkers were already stumbling over the rocky ground; as he watched, a seventh pushed its way through the scraggly underbrush, nearly falling before righting itself and joining the others. "Couldn't be helped," he told Daryl. "She's gotta get training."

"I know it," Daryl said, "but I'm sure as hell gettin' tired of ringin' the dinner bell for these sons of bitches."

Rick nodded, raised his voice as T-Dog got up from the grass where he'd been watching Carol's rifle practice; took in Glenn and Maggie, coming around from the other set of vehicles. "Like we been practicing!" he reminded them all. "No guns, we want to conserve our ammunition where possible. Stay in tight formation. Watch your partner's back. There's not many of them, we can take them out easy long as we hold to our training."

It wasn't pretty. They still had a long way to go in learning how to anticipate each other's movements. Maggie and Daryl moved on the same walker at the same time, nearly got tangled together and went down before T slid around them and sank his knife into the geek's skull. When they were forced back into the field and Rick slipped on the dew-drenched grass, it was Carl who darted in from the sidelines to kick the walker's legs out from under him before Daryl moved in for the kill.

In the end, though, they got it done.

Rick surveyed the ground, littered with corpses. Wiped his chin with the back of his hand before raising his eyes to the group. "Good work, everyone," he said. "Now we gotta move out. You know as well as I do there'll be more of 'em coming—"

He smelled it an instant before he saw it; barely had time to take a half step back from the tree before it was upon him. It had been a woman, once upon a time. Now it was a shell, grey-faced and merciless. He could see the stumps of blackened teeth grinding through its crushed and broken jaw, smell the fetid breath of it as it leaned in to snap at him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Daryl moving in from the left, his arm already raised and the knife in his hand, but Rick knew he was going to be too late.

When the bone and grey matter splattered against the side of his face, Rick gasped. His heart stopped, nothing in his chest, empty… and then restarted again at triple time. The walker slumped back against the tree, slid in boneless grace to rest against the exposed roots.

Rick raised a shaking hand to his face, grimaced when it came away covered with tiny chunks of rotting flesh. He lifted uncomprehending eyes to his group; met mostly shocked, scared faces. 

"Who..?" he managed to get out.

"Nice," Daryl said.

Carol smiled. "Guess I _can_ do it."


End file.
